Just realized - this is a Premiere. Ghod. No it isn't. Never mind.
The problem was that when I followed a link from a google search on the model, it went to a page for a Premiere XL. I knew that model number was a THD XL but for some reason it didn't register.

My TCD658000 (XL) came with a Western Digital WD10EVVS (1TB) and I replaced it with the exact same drive (bare)

Also...I have heard horrible stories about how WinMFS screws up the hard drives on Tivo Premiere...Pretty sure WinMFS is for series 3 and before. Something to do with altering the boot loader and rendering the drive unreadable to the Tivo Premiere?

My understanding is that jmfs-rev104.iso is the perfect tool for expanding drive capacity for Series 4 Premiere. Im pretty sure you can use Sata to USB adapters.

Also...I have spent literally hours searching the web for a FTP file server of any sort that could provide the vital component to starting my Tivo...I search the bit-torrents 5-10 times a day but nothing comes up. These files are not a deep dark secret that Tivo,inc is trying to keep away from us. You can download any of the operating systems at the tivo website but I think you need a linux computer to install on the hard drive...So far, the most effective way to get a Tivo (Series3) up and running with the least amount of fuss is find a back up image and loading it into WinMFS after connecting the drive. I should have created a Back Up image a long time ago but I never thought the process would be so complicate to get things up and running again...If my hard drives dies on my PC I just get another hard drive and install XP...Done...Tivo has seriously complicate this situation and I do not believe that Weaknees and DRVupgrade are the fair solution.

Instantcake should work over a USB to SATA connection. However, it probably won't work on a drive that is identical to the stock drive. From the instructions:

Quote:

The boot CD used for this version of InstantCake is known to support USB 2.0 to SATA (and IDE) controllers such as this one and that means you can use a standard laptop to prepare a drive, as well.

You will also need a hard drive to prepare for your TiVo unit. This drive should be larger than the original stock drive of your unit.

Quote:

We do not recommend you use your existing TiVo disk drive for InstantCake installations, in fact, in many cases it will not work: the target drive is expected to be larger than the original - please keep your TiVo drive in a safe place as a backup; at least until you've used InstantCake successfully at least once.

Also...I have spent literally hours searching the web for a FTP file server of any sort that could provide the vital component to starting my Tivo...I search the bit-torrents 5-10 times a day but nothing comes up. These files are not a deep dark secret that Tivo,inc is trying to keep away from us. You can download any of the operating systems at the tivo website but I think you need a linux computer to install on the hard drive...So far, the most effective way to get a Tivo (Series3) up and running with the least amount of fuss is find a back up image and loading it into WinMFS after connecting the drive. I should have created a Back Up image a long time ago but I never thought the process would be so complicate to get things up and running again...If my hard drives dies on my PC I just get another hard drive and install XP...Done...Tivo has seriously complicate this situation and I do not believe that Weaknees and DRVupgrade are the fair solution.

There used to be sites that had the images needed available for download. TiVo got them shutdown.

James...Id rather think that Weaknees and DVRupgrade have influenced that availability...Present day Tivo does not seem to worked up by it as having series 1,2,3 boxes online collecting subscription fees. On the flip side, A dead box is a brick or a premiere purchase. Either way Tivo, is happy. It's amazing how quick Tivo is to recommend weaknees when they are in copy right infringement on the OS...They can float the OS and sell a hard drive or service but you and I can't make a back up and give it to one another for a simple 3 click load in?...Maybe is Lou at DVRUpgrade was not such an ass to the Tivo community we would all overlook the $40 cost of instantcake and actually use their product.

James...Id rather think that Weaknees and DVRupgrade have influenced that availability...Present day Tivo does not seem to worked up by it as having series 1,2,3 boxes online collecting subscription fees. On the flip side, A dead box is a brick or a premiere purchase. Either way Tivo, is happy. It's amazing how quick Tivo is to recommend weaknees when they are in copy right infringement on the OS...They can float the OS and sell a hard drive or service but you and I can't make a back up and give it to one another for a simple 3 click load in?...Maybe is Lou at DVRUpgrade was not such an ass to the Tivo community we would all overlook the $40 cost of instantcake and actually use their product.

Yes, that was my theory too. I suspect that both weaKnees and dvr_dude are paying TiVo for the rights to "distribute" the s/w.

I had a Premiere drive die on me and for a reason I cannot believe, there is not even 1 image anywhere on the internet. I'll be dammed if I pay for an image that I'm sure someone else already has. Considering how cheap they are nowadays, the drive is worth more than the box. Since I couldn't get any help getting another image (that I refuse to pay for), I threw it in the garbage.

__________________
Nick

Every day I beat my own previous record for the number of consecutive
days I've stayed alive. - George Carlin - 1996

The problem with the new Premiere box in the interest of you needing and getting a .tbk image file is it involves someone actually removing the drive from a working system and think of someone other than them self down the road. Not a easy request to fulfill.

I'm in need of a rather dated Tivo HD XL image which has hopefully floated around long enough that I will eventually get one.

I too have a Premiere that I upgraded to a 2TB for $50 more than you paid for a replacement stock 320GB system...That extra 1.6GB seems like good value with 317 hours of HD

The problem with the new Premiere box in the interest of you needing and getting a .tbk image file is it involves someone actually removing the drive from a working system and think of someone other than them self down the road. Not a easy request to fulfill.

The real problem is that none of the tools currently available to consumers is capable of making or restoring a truncated backup of a Premiere.

Also...I have spent literally hours searching the web for a FTP file server of any sort that could provide the vital component to starting my Tivo...I search the bit-torrents 5-10 times a day but nothing comes up. These files are not a deep dark secret that Tivo,inc is trying to keep away from us. You can download any of the operating systems at the tivo website but I think you need a linux computer to install on the hard drive...So far, the most effective way to get a Tivo (Series3) up and running with the least amount of fuss is find a back up image and loading it into WinMFS after connecting the drive. I should have created a Back Up image a long time ago but I never thought the process would be so complicate to get things up and running again...If my hard drives dies on my PC I just get another hard drive and install XP...Done...Tivo has seriously complicate this situation and I do not believe that Weaknees and DRVupgrade are the fair solution.

What you can download from TiVo is the source for the Linux code they use.

That's not all of the TiVo software. There's also the proprietary stuff that they wrote themselves for which they don't make the source available.

If you have a pc that can run XP, you can also use the MFS Live cd v1.4 (from mfslive.org) to restore a truncated image made by MFS Live or MFS Tools if you should happen to lay hands on one of those.

MFS Live has no connection to InstantCake.

If your computer doesn't have a SATA port to which you can connect a SATA drive, you can use a JMicron or Marvell chipset based IDE/SATA adapter* to make any software that has to access the hard drive via the IDE controller (or more accurately any software that only knows to look at /dev/hdx and isn't written to also consider /dev/sdx) think that it's talking to an IDE drive.

Tivo instructed me to go to this side for all their operating systems...The dilemma is that you need a linux machine to load these resources onto a hard drive prior to dropping into a tivo box?

I talked to a programming friend he sensed a linux environment was going to be needed.

That site is for TiVos mods to the linux kernal, some commands and some of the tools. It does not provide you with access to their proprietary code, not even in object(executable) form. You cannot use just what is available there to build a replacement disk for a TiVo.